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Marconi R 50 Years On r65 Marconi r 50 years on by G,D. SPEAKE, o.e.n., M.A, c.Ens., F.I,E.E. G.D. Speake graduated in physics at &mbidge GEC Research Ltd University in 1941, and serued in the MF radar branch until 1946. He joinedMaraniin 1950, andwasappointed Chiet of Research in 1963, Director of Research in 1965 and @neral Manager, communicationsand broadcasting, in /968. In 1969, he became Technical Director for GEC Marconi, and since 1982 he has been DepuA Diredor of Research tor GEC. On July 20, 1937, Guglielmo Marconi died after closely allied to product units and the technologies in a series of heart attacks, none of which had diverted use had emerged from some 40 years of research and him from the process of experimental research, aimed development in what Marconi and his contemporaries at practical application, which had characterized described as "wireless". Thns there were teams the whole of his adult life. In the same year, the engaged in studies of electro-magnetic propagation, laboratories which now bear his name (The Marconi low noise receivers, radio direction finding and Research Centre) came into being. During the television, and in the development of specialized intervening years the size of the establishment and components suchas quarlzcrystals and gas discharge the scale of activities have increased dramatically, devices. (There was also a telephone laboratory but the general objective is consistent with thdt which which, while not strictly qualifying for inch-r,sion in the Marconi set for his own research effort at the wireless category, used the same basic technologies. ) beginning of the century. Together with the other laboratories of GEC Research Ltd, the Centre aims gry to establish, by theoretical study and practical Information T e chnolo experiment, the foundations of new business A visitor to the Marconi Research Centre now opportunities and thereby to serve the needs of the (fig. I), if asked to give his view on what is a common operating companies. theme throughout much of its activity, might weli This paper considers some of the areas currently say "information technology". He would mean that being studied and draws parallels between the work a substantial proportion of the resources of the in progEess and that carried out by Marconi and his Research Centre is devoted to research into the contemporaries over 50 years ago. generation, transmission and processing of data of all kinds. This is but a reflection of our modern society. The gathering of data from a range of sensors in an Origln of the Centre aircraft, and its processing into a state suitable Although Marconi had done most of his early work and convenient for assimilation by a pilot or aircraft from his base in Chelmsford, where the Company's controller, are as much "information technology" as the and the world's first "wireless factory" was set up in connection of a "smart card", at a point-of-sale, to a 1898, the last years of his life were spent in his native customer's account in a remotely situated bank. Italy, where he became eminent as a member of the However, while the term is new, the concept is not; Italian Senate, while continuing his career as inventor a visitor from a previou,s generation visiting Marconi and innovator. It was therefore a Board, led by and his fellow researchers at the beginning of the H. A. White, the then Managing Director of Marconi's century might have found the same description Wireless Telegrraph Company Ltd, which decided apposite. The existence of electro-magnetic waves to acguire the site at Great Baddow in order to had been predicted by Maxwell and demonstrated by bring together, under a single director, a number Hertz and others well before Marconi began his of research units previously scattered throughout the experiments. What he set out to do was to show that it Chelmsford area. was possible, and practicable, to convey u,seful They chose Baddow because of its relative isolation information from point-to-point by such means. He from potential sources of electronic interference and recogrnized that the safety of ships at sea, and their its suitability, therefore, for experimental work at low effectiveness in time ofwar, would be vastly improved signal levels. The research groups were then, as now, if they were able to communicate with one another and r66 GEC REVIEW, Vol, 3, No. 3, 1987 1 The Marconi Research Centretoday. with land bases. His experimental approach was Marine Gommrurications essentially a simple one; to increase the distance With the formation of the Marconi International progrressively between transmitter and receiver and Marine Communication Company (MIMCO) in 1900, to observe the results, not being unduly influenced by Marconi set out to provide a total communication predictions theoretical of others even when their service, i. e., shore- and ship-based eguipment academic reputations far exceeded his ovrm. Thus as and operating staff, to the merchant narry. (MIMCO early as 1899 he observed that signals transmitted stil provides such a senrice.) The first commercial from Wimereux near Boulogne, and intended for installation was to the German liner Kaiser Wilhelm reception on the south coast of England, were being der Grosse in 1900; by the end of 1902, seventy received strongly at Chelmsford, over 130 kilometres ships were fitted and twenty-five land stations were away and therefore well beyond the optical horizon. installed, some on the east coast of North America. This led on to the celebrated adventure in I90I, when The Company was thereby already engaged on the he and his colleagrue Kemp heard sigrnals transmitted development of information technology, although it from Poldhu in Cornwall in the earphones of a receiver did not have at its disposal modern technigues for in Nernrfoundland, Even with our current knowledge of processing data in such a way as to make human the behaviour of the ionosphere, (whichwas unknown interpretation easier and more reliable. The benefit of to Marconi and his contemporaries in l90I), and the having assistance at the human interface may be sophisticated analysis technigues which exist in the ilh-r,strated by a well-recorded incident from the Propagation Group at Marconi Research Centre, we Company's history. cannot satisfactorily explain how it was possible for the signals to be detectable by the relatively On April 14, 1912, the liner Titanic struck an crude antennas and receivers available at that time. iceberg. The liner's wireless operator had received a However, Marconi was not deterred by the poor warning that icebergs were present, from several quality and intermittent nature of the reception and, ships in the area and one even reported that it was if he had any doubts that he and Kemp might in their surrounded by ice and had stopped. However, the enthr:,siasm have deluded themselves, he was able in danger of the situation was clearly not appreciated on the following year to reassure himself and the world at the bridge of the ship, which continued to steam on at large by recording signals on the yacht Philadelphia high speed until the collision occured. The senior at a range of 3000 lan from the transmitter. wireless operator on board began immediately to MARCONI _ 50 YEARS ON l6? send out distress sigmals, but they were not received Government announced its decision; that a scheme by the nearest ship, the CaMornia, because its should be implemented, but that it would not be based wireless operator had retired to his bunk after on long u/aves. Instead it would employ the short- continuous duty of some sixteen hours. Other, more wave beam system, on which a Marconi team led distant, ships did respond to'the call and it was by C,S. Franklin had been working for some years. recogmized by the public at large that the casualty list Responsibility for its UK operation was assigrned to would have been even larger had the ships not been the Post Office, while the Dominion stations were equipped with wireless communication, but there is operated by local companies, in which the Marconi no doubt that more effective aids at the human Company usually had substantial interests. interface could have saved many of the I5l7 people In gaining acceptance of the scheme, Marconi lostthatnight. completed the first phase of his ambition to create a As is often the case, the Titanic disaster led worldwide communication system based on wireless. to improvements in technigues and procedrues. It is interesting that the natural area for the initiation Marconi proposed an auto-alarm system, on which he of the system was at that tune the British dominions, had already experimented, by means of which an throughout which commercial and social connections alarm bell would ring whenever a distress call was were strongly established. The Marconi Research received on an unattended receiver. Such a system Centre, and GEC Companies with communications was flnally introduced after World War I. There was interests, have for the past year been involved in also to be a muchmore rigidcontrolof transmissionsin studies of another projected network of communication, future, with an allocation of particular wavebands for but this time based on Europe and the Common lvlarket, specific purposes. which has in recent years become the natural environ- With the invention of the transistor, and the ment for UK developments. The RACE prognarnme many information processing dences which have which is endorsed by the European PTTs and developed from it, the introduction of much more supported by the European Commission, is intended sophisticated aids became practicable and economic. to lead to a broadband network serving the whole Much of the work of the Marconi Research Centre in of the Community in the 1990s, The first project I 987 is in the exploitation of semi - conductor devices to deflnition phase has been completed and continuation enable a human operator to perform more efficiently, into a main prognarnme via the Community's Research is aimed at a wide range of potential Framework Progrramme in R & D is planned.
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